Friday, February 12, 2010

F2: Is Love in the food?

Welcome again to Friday's Feast. Today I'll be talking about Love1 and cooking.

Participants in this weeks Feast are as follows:

If you don't know what Friday's Feast is all about, please read the Friday's Feast page for a more detailed explanation. If you want to join in on the feast— be sure to leave a comment and include the URL to your post so I and others can know of your contribution. Also, if you want to see a particular topic— feel free to suggest it as well (I'm always looking for new inspirations).


We tend to talk about things like "tasting the Love" in cooking. What is meant by that? Is this some magic ingredient that can be measured and put in a recipe (Add 1 T of Love). If you had a taste test, could you be able to determine which dish was cooked with Love and which one wasn't?

When I cook, I try to follow the recipe well enough so that it doesn't end in disaster. I can understand it when people know a recipe inside and out and take that extra care to make sure it is delicious— but it is difficult for me to justify that as "adding Love". I do not think that the skills of a cook come into play when it comes to putting any sort of feeling into their dish.

We can be proud of our creations. It feels good to know that what you cooked is liked by the people you serve your dish to. Even if the people love the dish, does that mean that the dish was cooked with Love?

I tend to not think about the people I am cooking for when I cook (I'm probably more concerned about avoiding disaster). I am sure that some do think about the people they are preparing the dish for when they are cooking. And when they do, they are feeling love towards those people. Is this feeling then translated into the actual "Love" that goes into the dish?

I know I've asked a lot of questions and no real answers. I'll leave it up to you to give me your opinion on the matter.

1 I am choosing to use different cases to designate the difference between "Love" and "love". One way to consider this is by representing "Love" is tangible and "love" is intangible. You could also consider "Love" as being the noun and "love" as being the verb or adjective use of the word.


Even though Valentine's Day is on Sunday, the topic for the entire month will still be "Love is in the Food". Here are some possible ways of interpreting this…

  • Talk about a Valentine's date you went on that involved food.
  • Does love "really" go into cooking?
  • Talk about some foods you love.
  • Made by Mom with love.

So… if you have anything that relates to this topic, be sure to leave a comment and include the URL so I can include you in the next weeks feast. Don't feel obligated to come up with something if you have already written on this topic in the past— your links are always welcome.


3 comments:

Anonymous said...

this sounds great. I love food! Will try to write a post to link.

Gretchen said...

Thanks for stopping by my post. I'd love to join in! Here's my link:

http://secondblooming.typepad.com/second-blooming/2010/02/spin-cycle-the-adventures-of-the-beef-broth-a-valentines-tale.html.html

Thanks SO much!

Deb said...

i guess the closest i come to adding Love to my cooking is when i cook with the express intent of making the consumer (usually hubs &/or boys) happy. what is weird, though, is they seem to like all the recipes (if you can even call them that) that are easiest to prepare, so it seems fraudulent to say i made their hamburger helper with Love.

i did make some red velvet sandwich cookies from scratch, and this was out of the ordinary, and i did think of how much the boys would like them when i was making them. so did i add a little Love? i don't know.

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